


defenses (pretenses)

by bookingref



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop, Wonder Girls
Genre: Alternate Canon, Character Study, F/M, Idol Life, Realistic, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 21:39:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4682393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookingref/pseuds/bookingref
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Wonder Girls' Hyerim and Exo's Chanyeol find a way to fall in love</p>
            </blockquote>





	defenses (pretenses)

December, 2013

They ordered pizza and stayed in on the last day of the year. 

Hyerim thought it was kind of like an off-day in the States, when they were still angling for a breakthrough, five girls in shimmery dresses and singing an English version of the monster hit that she wasn’t even originally part of. She alternated between hating and loving the American experience, but it wasn’t like Hyerim’s opinion mattered. A lot. This was also why they got Sohee’s favourite crust instead, but she’d managed to sneak in her kind of toppings in the end. Hyerim was good at being under the radar and getting things done. She had to tiptoe around some of the fans still, but she figured it was better now. At least they weren’t scowling at her and demanding for Sunmi’s return. Most of them. 

“Pretty,” she commented when Jia’s face, eyeliner gliding upwards in the most beautiful cat-eye ever, appeared on her television in brutally high definition glory. Didn’t even put on the twenty pounds everyone warned her about, even on a forty-two inch screen. 

Sohee turned and gave her a look, the glazed plate from Ikea that Hyerim had begged her mother to lug from Hong Kong for her balanced expertly on her stomach. She’d eaten three slices already, and all of the crust crumbs had fallen nowhere else but on the plate itself. It was the dead of winter, and they had central heating, but Sohee still was so well put together. Hyerim stared at her sweatpants and snorted in her head: _yeah, Wonder Girl alright_. 

“PD-nim could pay me a year’s bonus and I still wouldn’t go near the TV station with a stick,” Sohee snorted, “look at those PVC pants. Do you want to be _in_ them?”

She did, but Hyerim had something her trainer called a “calves problem”. “She’s really skinny.” She said, and Sohee snorted again. “I mean, she’s always been skinny, but she’s gotten even skinnier. How do you do that?”

Jia and Fei and Min and Suzy always told the media that they ate whatever they wanted and just worked out. Hyerim thought about it and wondered why nobody ever called them out for it. Or maybe it was just her metabolism on a really bad acid trip? It didn’t work that way for her, ever, and her trainer was hung up on her “calves problem”. Hyerim stared at her piece of pizza, and pushed it away slightly. Sohee was still looking at her when she was done. Sohee knew everything, and Hyerim felt a pang of guilt, but Sohee was the nation’s younger sister. The first one, and maybe Suzy held that title now, but she didn’t do battle with a “calves problem”. 

“Stop going on Tumblr,” Sohee said as miss A’s performance came to an end. The way she pronounced the English word reminded Hyerim of the days she and Yubin and Yeeun and Sunye would practice vocabulary lists, their tongues curling around the language they were suppose to conquer without a fight. In the end it had pinned them down and the Wonder Girls were dwindled to nothingness. “Whatever you see there is not real.”

“And whatever we see here is?” Hyerim asked, and immediately she wanted to bite her tongue. Sohee looked unruffled, though, and shook her head slowly. 

“It’s far worse,” she said and Hyerim could feel the sofa beneath her, warm from the hours they’d just spent there watching the idols of Korea gather and perform to be immortalised into tweets and Facebook statuses and Tumblr GIFs that would stay there forever. She sometimes chanced upon GIFs of 2PM. The tags were often livid with desire. 

“Sure.” She didn’t want to sound like a surly teenager, but as Hyerim settled back down into her sofa, she saw Sohee give her that indulgent look again. They remained quiet until a commercial break was announced, and she saw the names of idol groups dart across the screen, flashes from music videos that she pretended she never pored over sometimes, and then the wide grin of someone from that new SM boyband before Sohee stood up and asked where the white wine was. 

Hyerim was happy to oblige.

 

___________________

 

January, 2016

Chanyeol doesn’t have a type. 

At least, he thinks he doesn’t have a type. Sehun, for one, has a very specific checklist of what he looks for in a girl. Chanyeol thinks that’s stupid. Life never follows the boxes on a hypothetical piece of paper, and to pin your hopes on that? Dumb. Most of the girls he’s dated think the same way, and he’s liked all of them. At that point in time, anyway. So maybe he does have a type—a girl he happens to like. It sounds a bit assy, as he tumbles it through his head, but it’s also true. 

“Kind-hearted and friendly?” Therefore it must never be told. He finishes with an upward tilt of his voice, and gives the female interviewer a very well-practiced smile. It’s the one that shows the best number of teeth for maximum effect. She blinks rapidly at him before gathering her face into a very satisfied expression. Works everytime. 

He answers a few more questions, all vetted through by their PR team, and before he knows it, he’s free to go. Chanyeol pulls himself out of the expensive clothes they’ve dressed him for this shoot, and slips back into his equally expensive T-shirt and artfully ripped jeans. He can’t remember if they’re both fan presents, or sponsored gifts, or swiped from Baekhyun’s closet. Sometimes they meld into all the same thing. 

He’s been doing photo shoots a lot more often lately, ever since one of the magazines discovered that he could pose well when given the right background music. Now he does them more frequently than even Jongin, which isn’t a bad thing. Jongin has a bad back, and they don’t sit all the time in shoots. He slides into the back of their company van and pulls up the Instagram app. Chanyeol’s turned off notifications now, but he used to get a kick from watching the numbers balloon up against their orange icon. Popularity is something clean to get high on. But he also felt a little stupid after that, so he turned it off. 

“You have another shoot next week,” his manager informs him as they drive off. In the distance he can hear muffled screaming, his name torn into odd sounding syllables. Chanyeol’s name is mangled in a lot of ways—different tongues move in different patterns. Not all of them can get his name right. He nods and scrolls through his feed. Nothing interesting. For a while his followers count was the talk of the town. When he’d unfollowed Tao there was an uproar, and then he’d posted a post with a heartfelt caption, and then everyone was on their side. He was grateful for it, but also fascinated by the way it had manipulated everyone into the correct position. Social media truly is the invention of the century. 

“Who with?” He says when he’s done with peeking into a handcrafted version of his friends’ lives. His manager thumbs upwards on his phone and stops, squinting. Their manager is short-tempered but efficient. Actually, he used to be pretty nice. Chanyeol thinks the fans must have sandpapered the good guy out of him. “Sehun? Again?”

“No, it’s a 92-line special. Your year this year, whatever, all that fucking crap.” He says and Chanyeol makes a face. His manager finds it with a triumphant arm pump into the air. “With the Wonder Girls. Wait, one of them.”

Chanyeol thinks through the current members very quickly. They, too, had undergone member changes like they have, but at least no one dropped a thinly veiled diss track about them. He can’t remember who is the same age as he is in the group, and gives his manager a questioning look. 

“Hyerim,” he confirms, and Chanyeol struggles to process a semblance of her face, “you lucky bastard.”

 

___________________

 

February, 2016

Sunmi is fascinated by the fact that she gets to do a photo shoot with an Exo member. Hyerim plays her guitar with headphones clipped firmly over her ears as Sunmi jabbers on and on about how they’re so interesting. Why are they? Hyerim knows Jongdae, and he’s about the least exciting person on earth. Jongdae is someone SM managed to blindly find with lots of talent and stuck into a group hoping it would work. It did, because Jongdae had too much talent to spare. Hyerim was put through the same treatment and it didn’t turn out quite the same. 

“—rim?” Sunmi knocks with her knuckles on one side of her headphones, and Hyerim glares up at her. But it’s no use—they’ve always said that her eyes are too soft. Too unintimidating. It’s like having a rabbit stare you down. She doesn’t like that comparison anymore. “Hello. Are you there?”

“Clearly not,” she snaps as she pulls the headphones off. Sunmi grins at her and flops onto the couch behind her. Hyerim stares at her for a while, before reaching over to tickle her on the stomach. Sunmi squeals like it isn’t a punishment for interrupting her practice time. The white shirt she’s wearing rides up, and Hyerim can’t decide if she hates Sunmi’s stomach, no matter how innocent it may be and that she has one perfectly flat, taut one of her own now. Some things don’t go away. 

“Did you hear what I said?” Sunmi says after she’s done giggling, and Hyerim shakes her head. “Biggest boyband in the last four years—not in size, obviously, since they lost so many guys—and you’re getting to shoot with them! I vote Xiumin.”

“For what?” Hyerim bristles and Sunmi laughs again. It’s the kind you can never get irritated at, the kind that is girlish and light and so Sunmi that everyone loves it unconditionally. The brand that Hyerim supposes has never been assumed for her. 

“For taking really good photos with.” Sunmi looks at her like it’s obvious. It’s not. Hyerim can’t fathom how Sunmi ticks, even if they’ve been in the same group for years now. She’s from the generation before, the original, and Hyerim’s the replacement. The original and replacement as bandmates and friends? Only in the Wonder Girls, as Yeeun likes to say proudly. 

Her fingers brush over the strings of the guitar. For a year she had devoted herself, until she filmed the teaser video and everyone, every single comment she read on the Youtube comments section, was suitably impressed. Hyerim has found her niche. But inside, deep inside where she tucks unwanted and unnecessary emotion away into neat drawers that may or may not be from Ikea, the awkwardness remains. It’s like an essential part of her, Hyerim reasons. It’s also the reason she can’t deal with any of the crap she knows is bound to be thrown her way. She doesn’t want to handle fans leaving unintelligible comments and tagging handles on her Instagram account. The first time was hard enough. 

“He’s not part of 92-line.” She says finally, and stands up, her guitar hanging at an awkward angle where she’d put its strap across her body. Sunmi nods noncommittally, and Hyerim starts packing up. “I don’t know why they didn’t ask you to do it.”

“Me?” She hears Sunmi echo as she zips up her guitar case. “Why on earth would you think that way, Limmie?”

“Because,” she turns around and gestures at the space between them. Sunmi watches her, blinking in what must be confusion. Hyerim doesn’t quite know what she’s trying to say either, so her hand falters and stops in the middle of the gap between them. It’s one she can’t hurdle across without any difficulty. “because look at us. Why wouldn’t they?”

Sunmi gapes at her. For a long moment Hyerim wonders if she should feel angry at the fact that she can’t understand. Does Sunmi think she did weights and yoga and ate tofu salads because she liked it? Sunmi’s weight hovers naturally in the range that Hyerim has to give half her life to attain. It is so unfair, she thinks, but yet she can’t hate anyone. It is just her, Hyerim realises, and suddenly she feels so stupid. 

“Sorry, Mimi.” She mumbles, and Sunmi stares at her for a while more before suddenly standing, her shirt sliding back down, and pulling her into a tight hug. Her perfume is a light, flowery scent, and Hyerim lets herself be hugged. “Didn’t mean it.”

“Stop apologising for things you don’t have to,” she says and Hyerim doesn’t answer, “don’t do that.”

But it’s very difficult. It’s tough.

 

___________________

 

March, 2013

Chanyeol broke up with his girlfriend three weeks after Valentine’s Day. Nothing to be ashamed of, really, except that she was a trainee and then quit before she left the country two days after the break up. Clean enough. Chanyeol sat on the edge of his bed and wondered if he should mope. It took ten minutes before he decided that he wouldn’t. 

The rest were either out for a quick food run or in the studios. They were releasing their first album in an unspecified number of months—management was always vague because it kept them on their toes—and Chanyeol had finished his last recording a few days ago. Also the day his girlfriend texted him to say that they were over. A modern day Dear John, except less rambly and more environmentally friendly. He kind of understood her: the training wasn’t working out, he didn’t have a lot of time for her, his band was neither very popular nor very unpopular. He understood how the world worked, now that he was immersed in it and had no viable way back. 

You chose this, he would think sometimes, and that would be enough to stave off any thoughts of wanting to quit. Besides, weren’t they SM? Though, now that he thought about it, their ratio of investment to returns wasn’t that high. K suffered through a series of non-wins and M—Chanyeol frowned as he ambled to the kitchen, pulled the fridge open, and rummaged—M was actually doing okay. Guess the four Chinese members helped. 

He picked out a slice of cheese, wrapped in crinkly plastic, and dug around for soda before remembering that they were on a diet. The cheese in itself was a lucky find. He still tried to look, though, before giving up and slamming the door back shut. 

“Don’t keep doing that,” someone said from beside him, and Chanyeol jumped. “You’ll ruin the hinges.”

“Kyungsoo, what the fuck are you doing here?” He yelled and Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes at him before he walked past and got himself a glass of water. “Aren’t you recording?”

“Four,” he said in between long gulps, and Chanyeol turned around to look at the clock. It was only noon. Funny how it felt otherwise. “What are you doing?”

Chanyeol stared down at him. Kyungsoo finished his glass, washed it, and put it up on the rack to dry. Most of the others didn’t do that, preferring to leave their dirty utensils in the sink until their cleaning lady came over every Friday. Chanyeol was guilty of that, but he at least wasn’t as straight-laced as Kyungsoo was. Whatever good did that do? 

“I’m hungry.” He avoided the question and Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. “Got food?”

“Only a muesli bar,” he said and made to walk back to his room, the one he shared with Jongdae because nobody cared much about rooming arrangements when the comeback date was supposedly so near, “I don’t think that’s enough for you.”

“Don’t fucking care,” Chanyeol muttered and tore the packaging off his slice of cheese. Why did it have to be Kyungsoo who was at home with him? If it were Kris he’d at least be more at ease groaning away about the ex who was so ruthlessly efficient at cutting off all loose ends. Chanyeol never liked being that heartless, and Kyungsoo looked to be the type. They were never close, not even as trainees, and as M and K eased back into being one—their team slogan was something even Chanyeol had a hard time putting his heart into—he found himself being drawn to the others instead. Same-aged Kyungsoo was boring and he always looked like he knew everything. He hated it when people were good at that. Why bother, he always wondered, because everybody always has a secret to hide anyway. 

Kyungsoo returned with a bar shortly and threw it at him. He caught it with his right hand and ripped it open, biting off more than half of it in his first mouthful. Kyungsoo sat down opposite him and watched. It was awfully quiet, and all he could hear was the rumbling of the fan in someone’s room that they’d forgotten to turn off. Must be Lu Han. He always forgot the small stuff—turning the lights off, his wallet, their door lock passcode. Chanyeol took another bite and finished the bar. Kyungsoo was still watching. 

“I broke up with my girlfriend.” He announced, goaded by the urge just to tell someone, even if it was silent Kyungsoo with the all-knowing eyes. “Over text. Is that spineless, or what?”

“If you did it, yeah.” Kyungsoo replied and Chanyeol narrowed his eyes at him. Another thing about Kyungsoo was his excessive bluntness. It didn’t border on rude, like Tao when he wanted to be and acted like he didn’t understand Korean too well as a watertight reason, but it needled. 

“She did,” he said and Kyungsoo actually froze for a moment. Chanyeol blinked, before he realised that he could savour the moment of having caught him off guard. The taste of it was surprisingly good on the ego’s tongue. Chanyeol had nothing against Kyungsoo, but really had very little reason to like him that much either. Their team was a microcosm of what their company was—tight on the outside, otherwise on the inside. He didn’t mind, though, not when there was Kris to hang out with. Now _he_ was cool. “Still spineless?”

Kyungsoo looked at him after he’d said it a little too coldly, eyes flashing with something Chanyeol couldn’t be bothered to read. He picked at the muesli bar wrapper, soggy with the too-sweet yogurt topping that had probably melted after too many days in Kyungsoo’s backpack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kyungsoo open his mouth, as if to say something preachy in return, but he didn’t.

“Sorry,” was all he said, and Chanyeol watched as he mutely got up and shuffled back into his room. That was it? He stared at the empty spot Kyungsoo left behind, a gaping, yawning feeling at the bottom of his chest, before he kicked the chair away and heard it squeal against the wooden floor. 

Then he felt stupid, and put it back into place before their manager could see it and yell at him.

 

___________________

 

February, 2016

Hyerim checks through her social media accounts as their company van winds through traffic. It’s a game of live-sized knitting, with the van as their needle and the roads as their yarn, almost soothing while they drive out of Seoul. The set is located in Namyangju, not too far away but long enough for her to just check. Hyerim scrolls through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and updates none of them. Sometimes it’s just about seeing who cares enough to tag your handle and write an essay of how they love you. Or hate you. More often than not the negative ones are the ones that stand out the most. 

“Sunmi says she’s still envious,” their manager calls from the front seat. Sunmi has the day off and is probably eating fries in front of their television, watching cable and wearing thick sweats. Hyerim doesn’t see why she needs to be. “Also, she has popcorn ready when you get back.”

“I’m on a diet,” Hyerim says and their manager lets out a snort. He’s not the one who bloats up in the morning, she thinks angrily. But he’s also the one who holds her hand and tells her everything will be fine, so it’s tough to stay angry. “No carbs or fried stuff.”

“Go on the popcorn diet,” he suggests and it occurs to Hyerim that it’s usually easier for someone on the outside to say things like that. Imply it’s easy. It never is. They pull into the lot outside the set, converted from a giant warehouse of a shipping company that went bust a decade or so ago. Hyerim looks up at it as she drops herself off from the car, wet drops of half-snow-half-rain splattering on the ground beside her. It looks like an oversized birdhouse. 

The assistant editor greets them at the door. It’s been a while since she’s shed the weight, but every time she meets someone new, that little spark of admiration and sometimes envy makes her ego swell, just a bit. It’s good payback for all the bruising it took five years ago. Words cause the worst sort of bruises, the ones that reach deep and turn green and yellow and purple and never go away. The assistant editor has that sort of look in her eyes, and Hyerim smiles the smile that got her number one on Naver’s real time search chart when they came back as a real, legit band and she’d looked at the camera with full intention of shooting to the top. 

“We’re so happy to have you here,” she says as she leads them into the set. Wires snake everywhere, and Hyerim steps over them delicately in heels she’s learned to perfect walking in. New Hyerim, she thinks, is the result of perfectly plotted goals. Her body fat percentage is down to ten percent, so who can say that her checklists don’t work? Nobody, that’s who. “Let’s get you started on makeup. Oh, and here’s your rundown! I love your hair, by the way.”

She pulls at the ends, swishy against her jaw. Hyerim keeps the short cut because everyone likes it. “Thank you,” she says with that smile again, and the assistant editor grins at her before disappearing back on set. Her manager goes off with her, and immediately she’s settled in a chair and surrounded by a team brandishing brushes and hair irons. She’s used to it now, but back when she was a newbie, they scared her. Maybe that was why she always got the worst end of the stick for styling. But now, as they spray something in her hair and pull eyeliner across her waterline, she looks good. Took six years to achieve this sort of normalcy in idol-land, but she’s good. 

“Your face is so small,” the make up artist coos as she brushes a light dusting of blush on her cheeks, “I love the shape of your face!”

“Really?” She says and the make up artist laughs. It’s funny, because they used to put her face beside the rest and go, _look at how square she is_. It actually isn’t that funny, but Hyerim tries to keep it that way. Making the whole debut era a fiasco makes it a lot easier to deal with in retrospect. “Thanks, unnie.”

They talk a bit more about her face, mostly the make up artist and not Hyerim, before the hair people come to tousle her hair a bit more. “He’s really good looking,” the hair stylist tells her, his hand running through her long bob, slick and damp, “you two look fabulous together.”

Hyerim looks in the mirror and observes the girl with dark eyes looking back. They’ve done a really good job with the smokey eye makeup and bright red lip. She looks like a rebel. But she’s only Hyerim with a hobby for checklists and PowerPoint presentations on life goals. The magazine readers don’t need to know that, though. 

“Who?” She turns around to ask, but the room chatters as the door clicks open. The hair stylist nods in his direction, the Exo member. The really tall one, Hyerim dimly remembers from Jongdae’s last minute pep talk on Katalk, the one she doesn’t quite remember because really, you have to be loyal to M when your friend is in there. 

He towers over everyone in the room. His manager trots in behind him, and her manager swoops in to do whatever managers do. In their company it’s easier to see the managers as uncles and older sisters that meddle a lot. So she’s never had a clear idea of what their job scope is like, except that they do protect them. One time Sohee was accidentally mobbed by overenthusiastic fans and their manager managed to extract her without anybody’s feelings getting hurt. 

“Sunbae-nim,” he calls out once he’s about three steps away, and Hyerim looks up. Her neck has to crane, and she can feel her brows furrow lightly. Hyerim is never anything short of bright and polite to outsiders. No reason that he should be the first one otherwise. “Let’s work well together today.”

She blinks at his leather jacket and upswept hair. He is really good looking, the way SM likes their idols. If she’d auditioned for them so many years ago, Hyerim is sure that she would have given up the dream on the spot. She’d have become a college student and wow her professors with exquisitely designed PowerPoint presentations. But instead she’s sitting on a chair with a leather backing, torn and scratchy where her bare shoulder touches it, and looking up at Park Chanyeol. He nods slightly at her and then she can hear their junior manager suck in a sharp breath when the edge of his mouth quirks upwards in a smirk that really isn’t one. A smirk disguised as an attractive, harmless smile. It’s cute, the way he tries. 

“Let’s,” she says drolly and holds out a hand. She smiles, though, so nobody says anything. He looks like he doesn’t understand what just happened. I’m immune to your wiles, the voice in her head yells a little meanly, but Hyerim jiggles her hand. The senior’s waiting. He blinks once and then immediately shakes it. 

“Let’s.”

 

___________________

 

February, 2016

Chanyeol pulls at the strap of his leather jacket as they wait for the lighting levels to be finalised. In a corner of the studio his manager is hunched over, shoulders bunched up high and a blue light ghosting his face. He’s probably playing some game, the only free time he’s had in weeks and weeks, and Chanyeol can’t fault him. His eyes dart over to where Woo Hyerim is, current Wonder Girl, guitarist, and icy cold photoshoot partner. She’s smiling for a Polaroid picture, the ones they take and use for footage in the behind-the-scenes video magazines always release to hype things up. A camera is trained on him in the distance—he pretends to look up like it’s by accident, and waves. 

“Chanyeol!” Someone yells and he’s ushered back onto the set. It’s a simple one, draped with curtains and ancient-looking furniture. Looks almost like the back room of a retro bookstore, those frequented by hipsters in the Jongno area. Chanyeol knows this because he’s one of them. Jongin, though, appreciates the interior design for real. They don’t bother taking Jongdae or Baekhyun along on these trips, sneaking out of the back gate, grabbing a taxi with caps pressed down so low he has grooves in his forehead when he takes it off. 

“Hey,” she says when he approaches. Not so icy after all, he thinks and sits down. The make up artist that has been hovering immediately moves forward to touch up. He’s wearing a shit load of eyeliner today, a look that Baekhyun normally pulls off better. But he snuck a look at himself in the mirror earlier, and it’s not too bad. The wild child look on Hyerim though—he doesn’t remember her looking this way, ever, not from all the research he did on the Internet. “Holding up well?”

The tone of her voice is level. Chanyeol thinks of how the smirk, the smirk, had failed to work earlier. The ends of her lips turn up a little, her make up artist dabbing on more of the blood red lipstick, and he’s hit by a very sudden, almost train-like force of a realisation that he really is a lucky bastard. She’s much better at the smirking game than he is. Again, he thinks as the make up artist fumbles for her eyeliner pot, he doesn’t remember her looking this way. Feeling this way.

“Yes, quite well.” He manages to reply. The Wonder Girls are a bit of a weird subject in SM. Everyone wishes to acknowledge the fact that Girls’ Generation is unbeatable, but once, a long time ago, there was this other group that dominated the girl group scene. To admit this would be tantamount to failure on management’s part, so everyone tiptoes around the giant elephant in the room. But the elephant—or at least one-sixth of it—is here with him in this room, and she’s not the awkward one. “How long more do you think this will take?”

The art director yells, and Chanyeol shifts closer to Hyerim as per the short, blonde woman’s instructions. “I don’t know,” she admits as an assistant rushes forward and readjusts the curtain on their left. The art director yells instructions again. He moves closer and drapes an arm around her shoulders. His fingers touch her bare arm, pale and smooth, and the sensation burns. “Individual shots take less time.”

“Mmm,” he says and he knows it’s rude because he’s a junior and she’s a Wonder Girl, but the photographer is already heaving his camera into position, “let’s make this quick then.”

She angles her face towards him, eyes sultry, already in their sexy, grungy photoshoot mode. Chanyeol feels the edge of his lips quirk up again, in that smile that failed to make any impact. “Sure,” she says in a whisper, and turns around to look straight into the camera. He raises an eyebrow, for his pose or at her words he doesn’t exactly know, when her hand reaches up. She tangles her fingers loosely between his, and there is an explosion of light as the flash goes off. 

Well, Chanyeol thinks as the photographer spits out directions at top speed and she slides closer to him, midriff bare and legs in jet black jeans ripped at the knees, he’s one lucky bastard alright.

 

___________________

 

February, 2014

When Sunye broke the news to them in their Katalk chat group that yes, she was going to get married, Hyerim had run to the bathroom and cried in front of the mirror. It was the uncontrollable, body-wracking kind, and she didn’t know if she felt deep sorrow or joy. It had to be the latter, she told herself afterwards, that finally Sunye was getting the happiness she deserved. 

It came to her much later, when she was picking out a dress online, that it was also sorrow of the deepest type. Maybe, she thought, this was the end. This was the end of the Wonder Girls as they knew it. She paid for the dress with her credit card and ignored the text message informing her that a hundred bucks had just been deducted from her account. Curled up on the bed with a pillow, she tried to imagine someone next to her. Hyerim didn’t have an ideal type—those were dreamy. She had personality traits instead, an entire checklist of them. Those worked better than an ideal type. “Ideal” was a word never much associated with the likes of her. She thought hard about it for a long time, and fell asleep without getting an answer.

Later in the month Yeeun gathered them in a cafe, under the guise of buying them cake. Hyerim couldn’t resist cake, even if she was doing yoga and eating tofu salads and losing two pounds a week and gaining muscle strength. She weighed in at the gym every week. Seeing the scale tick downwards was something that inspired euphoria in her. Her Tumblr queue would be so proud. But she couldn’t resist either cake or Yeeun, so she appeared in the Garosu-gil cafe right on time. Pulled off her shades and ordered a latte with soy milk. The barista punched in the order and didn’t recognise her. 

They were playing 10cm. Hyerim tapped her fingers along to the light beat, trying to imagine if she could play the chords to the song. It was a silly thought, but she harboured many of those anyway. Her buzzer shook violently and she looked up to see the barista place a large mug on the pick-up counter. She made to stand up, but Yubin swooped in just then and picked it up for her instead. Yubin always did things like that—made her feel welcome when Hyerim knew that she wasn’t really. When she asked Yubin why one day, when she’d enough fool’s courage (ten shots after a tour leg, long bus rides made for good drinking time), all she did was look at her forehead and say, _I’ve been here once_. It was more than enough for Hyerim. 

“Hi love,” Yubin drawled in English as she set the cup down. She’d picked it up from one of their American road managers, a Japanese-American girl with the strongest Southern accent Hyerim had ever heard. “Is Yeeun late? Of course she’s late.”

“That’s not necessarily a given,” Hyerim replied as she sipped at her latte, “but she is.”

Yeeun burst into the cafe ten seconds after she’d said that. Yubin arched an eyebrow, looking every bit as sultry as she did when she was in that one photoshoot with Sunye and Taecyeon, and Hyerim shrugged. Guess she had to take back her words. Yeeun stalked over to where she was and pulled her cap off her head, hair in a frenzy. She still looked good, though. 

“Hi,” Yeeun said breathlessly and Hyerim slid the cup over to her wordlessly. She took a long drink, no matter that it was still somewhat hot. Yeeun, when excited, was oblivious to the world. Yubin and Hyerim knew that from months of experience on the American tar roads. Yeeun was the one to get frustrated first, a little angry, a little disappointed at the lack of response. Nobody said excitement had to be of the good kind. But in the end she’d put it all behind her, pulled herself together, and defended the mantle of a Wonder Girl by becoming a singer-songwriter who danced barefoot on stage. That, Hyerim thought, she wouldn’t be able to pull off. 

“What’s up?” Yubin said with a small smile. She was the oldest and that afforded her the leeway to indulge them. 

“Just came from a meeting with PD-nim,” Yeeun pushed the cup back to Hyerim and said a quick thanks, “girls, we’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Hyerim heard herself finish half a beat behind Yubin. Yeeun looked like she hadn’t heard the confusion in their voices, and flapped a hand. She was wearing a thin gold ring on her index finger, the one that her ex had given her as some hundredth day present. That same ex was now immortalised in the form of Hatfelt’s first studio album. Not that he would know—Yeeun was pretty good at making heartbreak sound universal. 

“Sunmi already agreed, because I staked her out in the practice rooms—do you know how hard it is to get to her? She needs to have fixed eating times. Anyway, Sunmi’s agreed, and I hope you two will too!” Yeeun said, her voice a rising tilt. Hyerim blinked. It was like she had said an entire lot of stuff and at the same time, said nothing at all. 

“Wait, what, Sunmi?” Yubin frowned and held up a hand. “What’s Mimi agreeing to that we have absolutely no idea about, Yeeun?”

“Playing the bass,” Yeeun said again like it was a given, and Hyerim’s jaw fell slightly slack. The what? “We also have highly recommended instruments for the both of you.”

She caught Yubin’s eye, who now looked like she had the truth dawn on her in a very violent way. In one of those tour buses that smelled like lemon freshener for the leather seats, they had once played a game of decide the next album concept. Hyerim knew that they were very firmly planted in the retro genre, roots deep and sprawling, but Yeeun was adamant that if they wanted to, they could totally be a band. Sohee had laughed at it, Sunye encouraging as always, but Hyerim remembered the streak of determination in Yeeun’s eyes, the one that manifested in the hard setting of the edge of her mouth. And now she had gone and made it a reality. 

“PD-nim recommends the guitar for you, Limmie.” Yeeun informed her very practically. Beside her Yubin was still in disbelief, her hand on her crossbody like she was going to leave any moment. But Hyerim knew that Yubin wouldn’t. In the end Yeeun was going to convince them and they would all be in this together. It had been that way in the tour bus with the lemon freshener, and it was going to be the same now. 

She felt that sort of conviction in her bones. Even more so when Yeeun bought them cake and Yubin stopped being in shock long enough to seriously consider the idea of her mastering the drums. Hyerim looked at her fingers, unaccustomed to the dexterity a guitarist would need. She wasn’t good, not by a long shot, at all the things an idol was supposed to excel at, but as she looked at Yeeun, digging into the cake and hair flailing animatedly at the idea of a Wonder Band, she felt it. 

That sort of conviction that she could for once, build something out of herself.

 

___________________

 

March, 2016

It’s downtime for Exo. 

Rare, but still downtime, and Chanyeol makes the most of it by staying up to scour through the Internet for Wonder Girls articles, reading them, and waking up at noon the next day. He stares up at the ceiling for a while, his legs hanging over the edge of his bed at an awkward angle. Jongdae isn’t in the room—he’s back in Siheung for vacation. Funny how going back to your hometown is considered a holiday, he thinks. It’s quiet outside, so Sehun’s probably not up either, or else he’d be perched in front of the television, fingers jabbing away very vigorously at a Playstation controller and TV volume turned up to the loudest. He apparently likes it when people can hear whatever he’s playing within a five mile radius. 

His laptop must have fallen to the ground when he fell asleep, and Chanyeol hangs over the precipice of his super-single to haul it back in. The browser’s still on the page where he’d pulled up their magazine photoshoot and interview. Hyerim’s face, perfect eyeliner and that red lip he’s had in his head for weeks on end now, stare back at him. Her eyes are so round. A rocker rabbit. 

“You’ll strain your back,” someone points out from the doorway, and Chanyeol is startled enough that he joins his laptop on the ground. The carpet is hot from the heating, emanating from the depths of their expensive high-rise apartment. They’d moved another time in the past year. There really isn’t a pressing need to room with each other anymore, but Jongdae stays with him apparently for loyalty’s sake. 

“Hyung,” he groans, and Yixing blinks in reply. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“I’ve been standing here for quite a while,” Yixing shrugs and says. “I made breakfast. Lunch. Brunch. Food, anyway.”

Chanyeol watches him turn and walk off, before looking back at his screen, where Hyerim is still watching with those eyes. That red lip—what colour is it, exactly? He thinks about it for a split second, before pushing his laptop shut and climbing up to go get some breakfast. Out of all of them, Yixing cooks the most decently when Kyungsoo isn’t around (often) or in the mood to (also often). He pops his head into Sehun’s room to see that he is, indeed, still lumped under his blanket, snoring intermittently. 

“Sausages and rice,” Yixing announces when he pulls a chair out at the dining table. It screeches and Chanyeol flinches. Yixing doesn’t even bat an eyelid. He looks exhausted, dark circles evident under his eyes, so Chanyeol is grateful that he even has anything to eat at this hour. “Help yourself.”

“Where’s everyone else?” Chanyeol asks as he reaches for the ketchup bottle. Yixing shrugs and begins to count them off: the Gyeonggi kids Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Kyungsoo have all gone back home, Jongin is out with his elder sister, Junmyeon is possibly playing golf with his dad, and Minseok is just out. Somewhere. Even Yixing doesn’t know. He nods, making a face, and starts shovelling rice. 

“Why is Hyerim on your laptop screen?” Yixing’s voice is flat, the way their voices are after forty eight hours of music video filming. Sort of sounds like a deflated horn, really, but Chanyeol chokes and grabs his glass of water. 

“Why is Hyerim on your laptop screen?” Yixing repeats again patiently as he coughs and hacks. “Do you need time to think it through? Hope it has nothing to do with late night, um, needs.”

“Hyung, come on!” Chanyeol protests in outrage. Yixing stares at him for a moment, before he has the cheek to laugh. It’s a nice change from the flatness of his voice. Yixing hasn’t sounded this alive in ages, straddling the flight routes between Korea and China like he’s on a pogo stick. He’s on two Chinese variety shows now, a fixed presence that requires such aerial acrobatics. Chanyeol can’t say that he’s not grateful. They all thought that Yixing would leave, now that there was no one to anchor him down, but he stayed. He’s staying, Chanyeol thinks, and that pretty much seals his loyalty to Yixing for life.

When they started losing members—one at first, then two, three all in quick succession—Chanyeol was one of them, he figures at least, who felt the betrayal the most keenly. He’s always been about doing the job. The Chinese members were supposed to help them get out there, be the Chinese element that would allow them to break through in their homeland. As it turned out they did, but it also backfired against the rest of them, the non-Chinese speaking, extremely Korean them. 

Sometimes Chanyeol does a quick search—Kris, Lu Han, Tao—and the results scroll on endlessly. He glares at their pictures sometimes, wanting to dredge up something, anything that would fuel his desire to do even better. Instead he sits there, glaring, and realising that _shit, it doesn’t matter anymore_. Even his pseudo-public feat of unfollowing Tao on Instagram had just amounted to him sneaking out to buy a bottle of soju and finishing it on his own inside their shared walk-in wardrobe. Jongdae found him there later, buzzed and salmon-red in the face, and pulled him back to bed. 

“Come on,” his voice gets a bit smaller and Yixing gives him a look. He’s not lying, Chanyeol reasons, not entirely, because even if his intentions aren’t anything gross and inappropriate, he _has_ been thinking of her incessantly for a while now. “I’m not, like, that gross.”

“How do I know that for sure?” Yixing says very seriously and stabs at a piece of sausage with his chopsticks. Chanyeol closes his eyes in defeat and keeps them that way when he hears Yixing laugh again. When he opens them again, Yixing has finished half the plate of sausages. A car horns very loudly outside, but the shrill sound dissipates in a few seconds. Chanyeol’s reminded of the many times he’s been deafened by sheer screaming, the way it messes up the in-ears and causes them to shriek. It’s all part and parcel of the idol life, he thinks. At least he’s never been physically hurt. Yixing pushes the plate of sausages towards him and places a hand on his back. 

“Do you, um, know her?” He asks as he dips a sausage into more ketchup. Chanyeol doesn’t even bother trying to hide anything, mostly because Yixing, with all his lack of keen observation skills, still manages to know everything in the end. He has this uncanny ability to get information out of people, like truth serum in the form of mild looks. 

Yixing begins to shake his head, before pausing and nodding. Then he reverses the process. “Not really,” he puts his chopsticks down and angles his fingers together, “I heard she’s part of China-line.”

“Aren’t _you_ China-line?” Chanyeol asks with a little more exasperation that he would have thought, and Yixing gives him an odd look. “I mean, you’re… Chinese?”

“Hyerim is Korean,” Yixing points out, “and anyway, China-line’s not really my thing. I mean it was more of T—” 

He halts and the both of them look away at their bowls for a moment in commiseration, before looking back up at each other and pretending that it never happened. Yixing clears his throat and Chanyeol slides the ketchup bottle to the other side of the table. The thing about the three departed—as Chanyeol calls them in his head, Jongdae and Kyungsoo refusing to partake in this—is that they’re still here, somehow. Lingering on in names they can’t quite form with their tongues anymore. In fact, Chanyeol thinks, they’re not the angriest ones. Once Minseok mentioned by complete accident Lu Han’s name, and their assistant manager suddenly stood up, strode out, and slammed the door shut so hard that the edge chipped itself off the doorframe. 

“Why are you so interested in her?” Yixing asks like he’s talking about the weather and the quality of the new fingerprint activated door lock, and Chanyeol takes a minute to consider before shrugging. He doesn’t really know either. Attraction sometimes works in a lot of different ways. “She isn’t your type.”

“I don’t have a type,” he answers reflexively and Yixing lets out a snort of disdain. Chanyeol can’t say anything, exactly because the band has seen a string of girlfriends in succession. Okay, so maybe he does have a type, but people change. Types change. Chanyeol can change too. “I seriously don’t have a type. A fixed type. Who has a fixed type anyway?”

Yixing automatically looks the way of the room opposite him, the one that Kyungsoo shares sometimes with Sehun when he’s being pertinent. Fair point. Chanyeol accepts that gracefully, and finishes the last of his rice. If their trainer could see him now, it’d be hell at their next session. But he’s hungry, and God knows how much he just wants to eat simple carbs for once. It’s the same with Hyerim, he reasons, that sometimes you just want something different. The phrasing sounds off in his head, though. 

“Do you think you could,” Chanyeol does something weird with his hands and Yixing is nice enough not to laugh, “set me up on something?”

“I told you I’m not in China-line,” Yixing says and yawns. Bummer. Chanyeol stares at Yixing for a while, willing him to take that back and say that despite everything, he’s still Chinese and China-line will accede to his request of a not-a-date-date anyway. But the quality that has made Yixing stay—loyalty? stubbornness?—is also the one that refuses him any reneging on his words.

“You should ask Jongdae. They’re friends.”

 

___________________

 

March, 2016

Jia tells a long and complicated story of how she came to make this call to Hyerim: 

“So Zhou Mi texted me to say that he’s been tasked by Donghae, who was asked by Sehun, who was assigned by Yixing—to ask _you_ if you’d like to meet more of Exo at our next meeting. I think whoever asked Yixing to ask Sehun to ask Donghae to ask Zhou Mi to ask me to ask you has lots of patience, because man, this is one game of telephone to be playing. Why couldn’t Yixing just go to me directly? He has my number. Hyerim?”

“Yeah?” Hyerim says while scrolling through her Twitter feed. She isn’t posting anything today either—just the routine check. The photoshoot with Chanyeol brought out the worst in a lot of people but strangely enough she isn’t affected by users with unintelligible handles telling her to fuck off and possibly expire in many, different ways. Hyerim’s past all of that now. But she still isn’t going to update, so her last tweet’s going to be the one linking everyone to the W Korea site. Consider this a hearty middle finger to all of the people clamouring for her hypothetical death. “I don’t know, does he have your number?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Jia sounds exasperated. “Anyway, yay or nay?”

“Is Jongdae going?” She asks and Jia launches into an explanation of how it’s dangerous because he really wants to keep this relationship going and he can’t risk anything that will expose it. Jia sounds a little scornful but Hyerim knows deep down inside they all envy Liyin a bit. A lot, for her. It takes incredible luck to be the kind of person Jongdae would go to such lengths for. “Okay, so no, he isn’t.”

“The SM boys are cute,” Jia admits ruefully, “no harm going.”

“Remember that one guy, what’s his name, Kr—”

“Okay, _sorry_.” Jia cuts her off, and Hyerim actually manages to laugh. The thing is, she isn’t averse to making friends. Not really, unless they belong to a company that actively encourages the illusion of ownership over idols. Hyerim has seen the people around her date, and those that get involved with SM’s lot (Jia, really) don’t usually turn out that well. Jongdae is the one exception, the kid her cousin knew from way back and introduced to her at a baptism party. Hyerim frowns, closes the Twitter tab, and starts going through Facebook. “Just, you know, you should really have fun. The SM kids are fun. Wasn’t Chanyeol nice to you?”

Hyerim scrolls past a picture of Sunye’s daughter, grinning at the camera, and presses Like. Her Facebook account is mostly private, though she knows when fans sometimes try to hack into it. The last time was when W Korea started posting teaser pictures of her and Chanyeol’s photo shoot. 

“He tried flirting,” she says and Jia immediately pounces on the opportunity to convince her of how this really is a sign of his ability to hang out with everyone. Hyerim is about to say yes just to get Jia off her back when she realises that there’s no way Jia would know this much about Chanyeol—M, despite everyone keeping mum about it, is the group to be with. China-line loyalty, all that. “Wait, is Chanyeol the one asking?”

Jia pauses, and Hyerim can hear the TV over at her side. “Um,” she begins and it doesn’t take long before she breaks down and confesses. Jia can’t lie, not by a long shot. Hyerim sometimes thinks it’s insane how people on the Internet can think that blind items about in-group bullying are about Jia. Jia’s the kind to cry watching Nicholas Sparks movies, even when they’re re-running on cable. “Zhou Mi said not to say, I’m sorry.”

“That’s kind of dumb,” she points out and Jia coughs, “he really should have asked me himself.”

“I just need an answer,” Jia pleads, and Hyerim sighs. “We’re just going to hang out, I promise.”

Hyerim scrolls all the way back up to the top of her Facebook timeline and deliberates on posting something. Jia is waiting on the line, her TV still playing loudly in the background. Now that she’s listening intently, Rachel McAdams is the one talking, about love and its selflessness probably. All Nicholas Sparks movies are the same, and she knows because she cries at them too. Re-runs included.

Hyerim stares at the blue Facebook logo and hears herself give in.

 

___________________

 

May, 2014

Everyone trode carefully in the dorms now. Chanyeol’s way of dealing with the departure was to lock himself in his room and play Starcraft ceaselessly, even after hours of filming at the TV stations and not being very good at it. He couldn’t imagine what the M members were feeling like, and he didn’t dare to ask either. His mother called to comfort him a few days after the official announcement, and Chanyeol felt a strange sense of detachment while she spoke. He didn’t need the words that much. If he could give them to Jongdae, or Yixing, or Minseok, or Lu Han, or Tao, he would. 

There was a knock on his door one night when he was engrossed in macromanaging his forces, and he ignored it until someone tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped so violently that he accidentally ripped his headphones out of its jack. 

“What the fuck,” he yelled and Kyungsoo closed the door shut with a quiet click, “Kyungsoo, what in the actual _fuck_?”

“Sorry,” he offered and Chanyeol glared at him so hard that he saw purple spots. When he turned back to the game it was already over, and the lines of _GGGGGGGGGGGG_ that didn’t stop popping up pissed him off so much that he slammed his laptop shut and flung himself on his bed. 

“What is it?” He remembered to ask after a while, and turned to look at Kyungsoo, who was perched on the other bed and looking down at his phone. Today had been a relatively short day for K, and everyone had chosen unanimously to stay at home. Junmyeon was cloistered in their manager’s bedroom, probably trying to make reason of everything by talking it out. Or he could be receiving instructions on what to say the next time a reporter called. 

“I ordered chicken,” Kyungsoo said simply and pointed to the paper container on the floor. It smelled so good that Chanyeol couldn’t will himself to bury his face in his pillow again. So he slid down and tore in. “Thought you’d like some, since you didn’t eat lunch.”

“I’m surprised hyung even let you,” Chanyeol said as he pulled away a strip of meat from the drumstick he was working on. They were promoting, so busy that they hardly had time to eat anything but rolls of kimbap wrapped in aluminium foil. Chicken was a luxury that they ironically had their faces emblazoned on containers for. Chanyeol stared at the betrayer’s face, smiling so brightly like nothing was wrong, and tore the paper right down the middle. 

“He didn’t,” Kyungsoo looked up from his phone, “I had them meet me at the gate. Used my own credit card.”

Chanyeol paused, and Kyungsoo looked down at him for a moment, before turning back to his phone. He was texting really quickly, the light of the screen dappled on his eyes and nose. Chanyeol had never looked closely at Kyungsoo before, not even when they were all struggling after debut, trying to match up to the hype that they’d been thrown into. Now Kyungsoo just looked normal. Okay. Like he was sympathetic, someone Chanyeol could consider a good colleague. 

“Thanks?” He mumbled and Kyungsoo nodded like it was nothing, not looking up from his phone. Chanyeol finished two more wings before he really asked what he wanted to. “Why?”

“Why what?” Kyungsoo peered down at him and put his phone away. It buzzed again but he didn’t pick it up. Chanyeol studied his face for a moment, the way his eyes were widened not because he was doing it for a variety show reaction, but because it was just him. Kyungsoo very rarely did well at variety because he couldn’t fake it. Their manager had yelled at him a couple of times for it, until they appeared on Weekly Idol and everyone decided that his deadpan was hilarious. “Why buy the chicken? Dunno, thought you needed it.”

“Oh,” Chanyeol wiped his fingers on a napkin he found in the depths of the plastic bag stamped with the logo of the fried chicken company they were currently endorsing. Very soon they would be scrambling to remove the face of the betrayer on their paper boxes. He wondered how much that would cost. “Glad Baekhyun isn’t here to grab any, then.”

“I bought this for you.” Kyungsoo said, looking at him weirdly. “You didn’t have to share in the first place.”

But why? Kyungsoo’s answer opened up a whole other bouquet of odd possibilities that Chanyeol didn’t want to think about. Why would Kyungsoo, the member of his boy band that he worked hard to try and treat as part of the wallpaper, be so nice to him? Chanyeol stared at the horrible patchwork bed cover that Baekhyun insisted on using for months in a row, and wondered. 

“I wasn’t the closest to him, so I probably don’t get what you’re feeling right now all that keenly.” Kyungsoo said after a long silence, and shrugged. Chanyeol listened without wanting to open his mouth and be a smartass for once. It was funny, because no matter how much he tried to avoid it, it always came back as this in the end—they didn’t have the sort of relationship Chanyeol thought they did. It was particularly difficult to swallow, especially when he’d been cut off on virtually every form of contact. He could no longer message Kris on Katalk because he had been blocked. It was a mind-numbing blow, a reminder that Chanyeol had over-thought the boundaries of their relationship. “But you’re my bandmate. My friend. Guess that’s enough reason to do something.”

“But I—” Chanyeol’s throat was unnaturally parched and he sounded like he’d been yelling for ages. Maybe he really had, just that no one else could hear. And here Kyungsoo was, cross-legged now on Baekhyun’s bed and extending an olive branch that wasn’t necessary, because Chanyeol had been such an asshole to him. 

“Yeah I know. Nobody said boy band members had to like each other.” Kyungsoo shrugged and placed his phone atop his thigh. It lit up again. “I didn’t come in expecting to be best friends with everybody. But even strangers can be kind to each other, and I consider you my friend, Chanyeol. That really is more than enough reason for me to be nice.”

Chanyeol kept quiet and gaped. Kyungsoo’s phone buzzed again and he could see the faintest smile on the edge of his lips. It was odd, because Chanyeol’s mind was turning to mush. Clearly it couldn’t cope with the realisation that after all these years of treating Kyungsoo like an annoying colleague who didn’t entertain the bosses but got a bigger yearly bonus than he did, Chanyeol was a friend to him. He opened his mouth, expecting words to tumble out, but they didn’t. 

“Besides,” Kyungsoo said, “my girlfriend likes you. Says you rap well. More reason.”

“You have a girlfriend?” That was enough to get his mouth working again. Chanyeol could hear his voice rise an octave. “You have a what?”

“Don’t play till too late,” Kyungsoo squarely ignored the question and got off the bed, scooping up the remnants of the fried chicken packaging and shoving them into the plastic bag. Chanyeol trained his eyes on him and repeated himself one more time. Again Kyungsoo ignored him. 

“We have a schedule at eight tomorrow morning. The best way to deal with things is often to just move forward. Night, Chanyeol.”

He stared at Kyungsoo all the way until the door clicked back shut.

 

___________________

 

March, 2016

Hyerim crosses her legs and leans back as Zhou Mi flails his body in what is a very odd interpretation of the Tell Me dance and sings Sohee’s parts with much aplomb. Beside her Jia is nursing a glass of bright blue liquid with obvious alcoholic properties, clearly wanting to bolt but staying because Zhou Mi is one of her closest friends, and just leaving is a show of disrespect to the deep and meaningful bond they share. Just beyond her Chanyeol has a tambourine in hand, listening to whatever Fei is saying intently. 

“I want you to know that I hate all of you,” she leans over to Jia and whispers, “all of you.”

“What, because Donghae oppa invited himself?” Jia whispers back. Hyerim glances over to where Donghae is, laughing and singing along simultaneously, and turns back to glare at Jia, who visibly wilters. At least it works on Jia, she thinks. “I’m sorry!”

“Stop playing dumb,” she growls a little, “if Zhou Mi oppa is just going to hog the mic for the entire night, I’m leaving.”

“No no no, don’t go!” Jia grabs at her arm and Hyerim waits as she kicks at Zhou Mi when the song ends. “Guys, we should totally have a duet up next.”

Donghae hoots in approval, and Zhou Mi, though not looking very delighted at the prospect of putting his microphone down, passes the remote control over. Jia busies herself with flipping through the song system, and Hyerim takes her phone out to scroll through social media again. It’s become more and more of a habit, reading and not posting anything. A bit like stalking, really, except she’s creeping on her own virtual existence and waiting to see if anyone still hates her like they used to—sometimes, sometimes not. 

“I’ll do it!” she hears Chanyeol volunteer when she’s nearing the end of her Instagram timeline, and looks up to find Sunmi’s face staring at her on the television screen. It’s a very familiar looking music video, and as soon as the first line drops, everyone starts laughing. Not like he’s doing a bad job or anything, Hyerim thinks, but Chanyeol’s lowered the key of the song so much that she thinks Sunmi may cry if she were here. His singing is decent for a rapper, and the fact that it’s so deep makes it a strangely attractive cover. Hyerim almost starts singing along when Jia stuffs the other microphone into her hand. 

“What?” She hisses and Jia motions for her to start rapping. Hyerim glances back at the TV screen and she has about three seconds before the rap portion starts. It’s now or never, and Hyerim mentally curses the entire world, apologises for it, then begins to rap. She’s covered this part before, mainly because Yubin thought her voice was more suitable, and she knows all the lyrics by heart. But it’s still weird, mostly because Chanyeol keeps turning around to look at her and thinking that she can’t see him do that. 

“Go Hyerim!” Fei yells, and Chanyeol misses the first beat of Sunmi’s next line. Hyerim blinks at him, and realises belatedly that his ears are so, so red. Well. He wasn’t like that when they were doing the photoshoot and in closer proximity than they are now, with a huge space between the couch and the TV where he’s stationed in front of. Hell, she even had her midriff exposed then, and she’s only wearing an oversized T-shirt and cardigan now. He should have picked a better time to blush, Hyerim thinks, at least when she knows she’s inspiring that sort of blood rush. 

They get a dismal score of 75, and Chanyeol turns around so sadly that she for a moment sees their family dog in him, like whenever they deny him ultra-fat pieces of bacon and his ears fold downwards in sheer, utter grief. He troops back to his place, but Jia has already scooted over to where Fei is, still clutching her glass of bright blue booze. So he turns to her, and Hyerim stares at him for a brief moment, before proffering a hand to let him hi-five.

“Thanks,” he does it with so much enthusiasm Hyerim thinks for a moment that this is how their family dog looks like when he does get to eat those bacon strips, “I usually do better, though.”

“Jongdae says not,” she tells him honestly and his imaginary dog ears fold downwards again. Hyerim kind of feels bad, but flirting has never been much of a forte for her. Neither is trusting a member of the biggest boy band around these days. Trust issues she has, like Sunye likes to tell her, but Hyerim thinks it’s always good, always better to be cautious. Especially around kids like Chanyeol. Never before has he have to wade through vicious comments from fans in his life. Hyerim’s been there, done that. 

“ _Jongdae_ can’t rap,” he says with disdain, and Hyerim finds his expression so funny that she almost laughs. She stops herself in time, though, but not quick enough because he sees it and gives her a little knowing smile. Hyerim has to concentrate very hard not to return it. “I know because he tried and our producer told him to stop.”

“Of course he did,” Hyerim says and picks up her phone when it vibrates. It’s a message from Sohee in their Wonder Girls group chat, and she idly reads through it before going back to Instagram. She gets through a few pictures before she realises that Chanyeol is looking over her shoulder, and she’s not pissed at all. 

“We should follow each other,” he grins at her and then the loudest alarm starts going off in Hyerim’s head. “I’ll do it now.”

“Wa—” She reaches for his phone but Chanyeol turns around to the side and types so fast that she cannot possibly stop him in time. An orange notification jumps up at the bottom of her screen, and Hyerim stares at it, frozen in what may be shock. “Did you just—follow me?”

“Yeah,” he says with a satisfied smile and Hyerim keeps her eyes locked on her phone until she feels the sigh go out of her very slowly. “We’re friends, right? I mean, bar the photoshoot, any of Jongdae’s friends are my friends. I mean, of course I want to be your friend, like, friend, but we already are connected through a mutual friend? So we already have some sort of friendship? Anyhow, following you on Instagram is normal. Totally.”

“I think you should check your mentions soon,” she says after a long pause, “because there will be a lot of crying and wailing and confusion.”

Chanyeol keeps grinning at her, and she resists the urge to bury her face in her knees. Reflex action, one that she did most often after her 2 Different Tears performances back in the day. Asked herself why she was here, why she was doing this, why she even agreed to step into the shoes of someone she couldn’t possibly fill in for, one-fifth of a girl group juggernaut. Now, though, she’s strong enough to look him in the eye, at least a little faux-coldly at least. 

“I don’t do notifications,” Chanyeol shrugs, “not anymore.”

 

___________________

 

May, 2016

In his defense, Chanyeol thinks that his rocky start with Hyerim may have been because of his propensity to do things rashly. But now, as they take a break before the last run-through of their new choreography before the comeback, he’s rather grateful he did that in the first place. Things run like dominoes in their world, and one thing led to another, and three days after that awfully disastrous noraebang group date, Jongdae had come into their room with a very serious look on his face. 

“I’m only asking this because she wanted me to,” Jongdae had said and Chanyeol knew without question that the she in question was Liyin, “but seriously, if you want to date Hyerim, you should probably give up.”

“What?” Chanyeol had sputtered in response. “Nothing even happened that day!”

“We all know how you are,” Jongdae said with a roll of his eyes, “and Hyerim is not your type. Dude, if you’re not serious, back off.”

“Why are you being this way?” Chanyeol asked, feeling a little hurt. Why did everyone look at him like he was some indecisive philanderer? It wasn’t fair, to him at least, and to deny him the chance to become friends with someone that he actually liked just because of that was irrationally stupid. 

“Because she’s my friend. Also, Liyin likes her.” Jongdae shrugged. “Seriously though, don’t even go there if you’re not sure if you can.”

“I only want to be her friend,” Chanyeol said, and Jongdae nodded like he was telling a very flat joke. “Seriously.”

“I looked at her Instagram comments, dude. That photoshoot with you got her enough dumbass flak already, so your little stunt did not help with anything. Come on, Chanyeol, you know well enough what the fans are capable of.” Jongdae said, looking at him like he was incapable of understanding the severity of his actions. 

“I—” Chanyeol wanted to say something in his own defense but really couldn’t. He hadn’t thought that far ahead when he went and followed her—all he wanted was a mutual follow, a little window into her life. “Okay. How do I say sorry?”

Jongdae had stared at him for a long, meaningful moment, before he pulled his phone out and texted a string of numbers to him. “Do it yourself. Call, apologise, and then never be an ass to her again.”

So he did. Surprisingly Hyerim didn’t slam the phone down on him, nor did she swear at him, nor did a combination of the both happen. Instead she just said it was okay, and before he could help himself, he asked too-sincerely if they could be friends. She had paused for so long that he thought she had already cut the line off, before she suddenly spoke again and said a single thing: “Sure.”

Chanyeol has been on multiple coffee outings with her so far, and the fact that she replies to his messages and is willing to even come to a Starbucks that far away from her dorm makes _him_ irrationally stupid. He’s so cheery that even Junmyeon notices, and sometimes he’s on the verge of telling Sehun that hyung’s in so much bliss before he remembers that Sehun tells Donghae everything, and Donghae was that one link to her in the first place, and that’s not going to be good for either of them. So he just plays it cool and goes to their coffee outings that no one knows about. 

“If you’re sneaking out again tonight, can you get me a latte? Grande, please.” Kyungsoo says from behind him, and Chanyeol is about to say sure before he really understands what Kyungsoo means. 

“Wh—”

“Yeah. Grande latte, please.” Kyungsoo repeats, and Jongdae looks over. Chanyeol immediately tamps down on his volume. Elsewhere Sehun and Jongin are engaged in a series of very weird dance moves that everyone else is laughing at. “You go to Starbucks every Wednesday, don’t you?”

“How do you know that?” He hisses and Kyungsoo shrugs. How does Kyungsoo know everything? He’s busy with a drama and an almost-complete movie and a girlfriend that Chanyeol hasn’t even found any dirt on because nobody else seems to know she exists. 

“Just don’t get caught. Hyerim is nice.” Kyungsoo pats him on the shoulder and Chanyeol’s jaw slacks. “Also, grande latte. Remember that.”

“Fuck you, Kyungsoo,” he remembers to say a few seconds later and Kyungsoo gives him a serene smile. 

“Won’t be you doing it,” Kyungsoo replies and saunters off to where Jongdae is, now stretching his legs out in some attempt to relieve his muscle aches. Chanyeol debates the pros of doing something, _anything_ , to wipe that effortless expression off Kyungsoo’s face, but they go back to practice again. It’s intense enough that even Jongin and Sehun are wiped out at the end, and it gives him sufficient time and space to sneak out without anyone noticing. 

Hyerim comes to pick him up in her black Mini Cooper. “My brother usually drives it,” she says simply as an explanation when he’s climbed into the passenger’s seat beside her, pushing his cap down low, “so nobody knows who it actually belongs to.”

“Nice,” he says, and she drives off into the night. They’re near the junction where they should turn right to get to the Starbucks they rotate going to—they have three, one away from his dorm, one away from hers, and one in the middle—but Hyerim signals to go left instead.

“It’s perfect to go driving tonight,” she points out when he asks her why, “we should go to the Han River. With you all bundled up nobody’s going to notice.”

“You know they know how I look like even without a face, right?” Chanyeol says and she shrugs. “It’s creepy sometimes.”

“All the time,” Hyerim replies sagely, “I’ve seen fancams.”

He’s about to ask her why on earth she’s seen potentially embarrassing fancams of him, but she passes him her phone instead. One of the things that has seemed to endear him to her is their shared enjoyment of music. Chanyeol discovers that they have a common love of indie bands, Korean or otherwise, and most of the time when they have nothing else to talk about in Starbucks, someone pulls out their phone and offers an earbud. He scrolls to her Playlist section and finds one labelled “Drive”. 

“I love this song,” he declares as the beat of I Feel You starts playing, and Hyerim cracks a small smile. They’re on a highway now, the lights of Seoul scattered around them. He’s seen this too many times before, in a company van or in a business class seat high above the skies of Incheon. Night is the time of the day that suits them best now—good for stealth, good for hanging out with the people he really wants to be with. Hyerim’s singing along to the song, a wisp of hair tickling the edge of her mouth. He doesn’t push it away—it’s too early for that sort of thing. 

“Bet you loved the leotards more,” Hyerim turns slightly to look at him, eyes daring him to say no. 

“Loved the _guitar_ ,” he says and raises his hands solemnly, “because guitars are hot.”

“Oh, a lot of things are hot to you,” she says with a roll of her eyes, “you’re making the value of my guitar playing drop, come on.”

“Stupid Jongdae,” he grits his teeth and she laughs. Chanyeol can’t even be cool anymore, not in front of her when she has Jongdae for a friend. Jongdae may be an excellent bandmate and a bro to count on, but he’s also crazy about frankness and has an inability to lie about anything and anyone. “Why does he keep making me look bad?”

“He can’t if it’s not true,” Hyerim says and squeals when the next song comes up. Chanyeol taps his fingers to the beat, her voice rapping fast and clear. “I wrote this.”

“Wow,” he nods, and she gives him a smug look that is somehow horrifyingly attractive. He finds the song good too, though as it gets to the middle he realises that it really is an anthem for girls against lousy exes. “Did someone piss you off, though?”

“Yeah, my ex.” She nods and turns off the highway. “He was kind of a dick,” she admits and they move towards what seems to be the Han River. Chanyeol realises that she’s serious about this, and pushes his cap down a little more, before deciding to put his hood over it for an added layer of safety. “Super clingy, and tried making me stay at home all the time. Also, he totally made a pass at Sohee, so.”

“What a tool.” Chanyeol says in outrage and she laughs a little again. Her laugh is girlish, at odds with her now-sleek appearance, but he’s seen enough past photos to know that she wasn’t always the Lim she now presents herself to be. It’s cute though, the way she can’t change her laugh. “Bet he regrets it now. I would so not do that, by the way.”

Hyerim snorts. “Sure,” she says and turns again. They’re near one of the smaller Han River parks now. Their old dorm was further away from the river, but Chanyeol used to go cycling there a lot. Nowadays it’s much more difficult to sneak out, but he’s never thought to actually switch to driving there instead. The thing about him is that he never realises there’s a new route until someone points it out—Kyungsoo constantly says that like it’s an insult, but he thinks otherwise. Why change up something if it works? “We all know about your string of trainee girlfriends who all magically disappeared.”

“If you really have to know, I get dumped most of the time.” He says and makes a face. “Jongdae would have told you that.”

Their car stops in a mostly empty parking lot. It’s a Monday, and Chanyeol realises the significance of coming on a weekday when most people are exhausted from endless work cycles, the same mundane repeating of tasks. Nobody has the strength to drive out all the way to one of these smaller parks—they’re here because they can afford to be. It’s a strange thing to think. 

“Is that why you got that tattoo?” She pulls up the handbrake and makes a face in return. “The font’s kind of high school-ish.”

He can feel his face fall, and pulls down at the sleeve of his hoodie that he’d pushed up during the ride here. “No,” he hears himself say weakly, and looks up to see Hyerim’s face uncomfortably awkward, “not really.” Truth is, it’s not far from it. Most people get tattoos to commemorate a particularly bad breakup, and Chanyeol’s not one to stray from the mainstream. He’d asked one of the stylist hyungs for the number of a tattoo place that most of his fellow idols went to, and searched up a meaningful phrase in Latin because it just sounded cooler. Nobody can fault him for wanting to ink himself to try and remind himself that it’s time to leave those who want to leave behind. 

“Sorry,” she says, and her voice is a little loud over the Zion.T song that has started playing, “that was mean.”

“Nah,” he waves a hand, “I’ve said meaner things. That’s one of the top reasons why I’ve been dumped, by the way.”

“Because you’re bad at talking?” Hyerim raises an eyebrow. “Welcome to the club.”

“Are you always this prickly?” He asks as he leans back into the leather seat. Hyerim makes a face, and pushes her seat back as well. The park is quiet and dark, a couple snuggling up in the bench in front of them. “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

The car is silent for a long beat, before she replies. “Sometimes you’re your own knight in shining armour.”

Zion.T keeps crooning. The couple in front of their car are now entwined in the darkness, and Hyerim clears her throat. She doesn’t sound like she’s complaining, or whining, or unhappy. Just very matter-of-factly, like it’s a truth of life and she’s dealing with it. The truths of life seem to differ from person to person, as he realises. Chanyeol’s never had to think this way before, like he’s the only person he can depend on. No matter how much hate is thrown their way—his way—there is always a solid army of fans who hit back before he even gets to read any comments. They guard him, most of the time, but they also trap him. 

“You’re not alone,” is all he can offer. His voice is deep alongside Zion.T’s. 

She laughs, a short, sweet sound. “That’s not true,” she counters, “we know it. Your exes would know it. How many times did you have to cancel on them because of the greater idol good? ”

Chanyeol glances at the couple in front of them. They’re still making out. “Well, I only really had three girlfriends after debut, but yeah. The last one quit on me via text because she wanted to give me a taste of my own medicine.”

Hyerim shakes her head, and one of their songs start to play. Love Me Right has always been one of his favourite tracks to promote, despite the horrific bleach job, and he starts humming along. Out of the corner of his eye he sees her tap along to the beat. 

“Touche.” She says quietly as Sehun raps, syllables rounded. “You are your own best bet. It sounds selfish, but who ever said being an idol meant having to be kind?”

He turns to look at her, but she’s already staring at him. She’s put together, as always, but for once he manages to see the heavy tiredness beneath her eyes, lining the edges of her mouth. Her cheek is pressed against the leather of her seat, like she’s about to fall asleep, but he knows she’s too guarded to do that in his presence. Their relationship is undefined, like groping in the darkness for a safe place to land, but strangely enough Chanyeol’s not afraid. There have been many times in his life—his career, he thinks—that he’s been frightened to the point of no return. He’s thrown up backstage too many times to count, stumble off during the M portion of a song to break out in cold sweat, then return back on to rap and throw his best looks to the camera. Nobody must ever know that you’re not your best, their managers remind and remind, because you’re Exo. His identity is now irrevocably intertwined with that of the group’s, nine as one now, but he’s never felt more unsure of who he really is. The Chanyeol willing to push past the boundaries of a sickness-ravaged body—would he be able to do this, if he were not an idol, to be so unkind to himself so that he could be kind to everyone else?

They listen to Yixing belt a note, Hyerim still tapping out the beat on the gearbox. He stares at her fingers, a fresh manicure, the sheer sense of idol-dom, the need to always stay prim and groomed, and the sudden urge to rub it all off comes too quick to stop. She doesn’t push him away when he picks her hand up, fingers on top of hers. Merely gives him a look, lazy but impossible to read, and lets him push a finger down her finely painted nails. It doesn’t come off, but he doesn’t let go either. 

“We don’t have to be kind, but you can be better to yourself,” He says, as Kyungsoo reaches for a high note. She blinks slowly at him, expression in her eyes still unreadable. Is it him, or is it her?

The song comes to an end, and Hyukoh starts playing, but she still doesn’t say anything. Their hands are still clasped together, resting lightly on the gearbox, and Chanyeol knows he should be deathly afraid of Dispatch and their cameras everywhere, but he isn’t. He just can’t find it in himself to be frightened of something he isn’t. Maybe this is being kind to himself. 

“Like this?” Her fingers curl tighter around his. Something burns in him. “Do you honestly think this will work out? I’ve seen Jia date people from your company. The ending’s never pretty.”

He moves to imitate her position, cheek pressed against the seat, and looks her squarely in the eyes. She doesn’t shy away, and he holds her hand a little tighter. Suddenly he wonders how it would be like if they did get caught by Dispatch—SM would yell, JYP would be chill, and he would be a little happy, maybe. What about her? 

“We’re not them, you know.” He says and she smiles, a little. “I’m stupid sometimes, but I know it when I like someone.”

“I don’t think you would have given me a second glance six years ago,” she points out so frankly it cuts deep, “which is totally okay, by the way.”

“But I’m not who I was six years ago,” he counters, “give twenty-five year old Chanyeol some growing up credit?”

Hyerim looks at him like she never has before, straight in the eyes, something burning in the way her mouth sets in a firm line. “To our credit, we’ve grown because the fans won’t. I know what you see in me,” she says and Chanyeol swallows, “it’s the same thing I see in you. I like the way you look, the lines of your body—if you stop to think about it, is our liking of each other based merely on the physical? Will we ever,” she pauses and does a little shrug, “I don’t know, make it past that point where I want to make out with you because you’re hot?”

He lifts an eyebrow despite the unbecoming flush in his ears. “Seriously?”

“We’re _twenty-five_ ,” she deadpans, but her ears are equally red, “way past the age of just holding hands. Half the songs I write are about theoretical sex.”

He shifts and pulls her closer. She doesn’t resist, and comes so near that he can smell the perfume she’s wearing today—it’s different from their last date, and he knows it because he files away arbitrary details about her away in his head. They’re _just_ about the physical? Chanyeol begs to differ. 

“Are you proposing we make out now? After multiple dates of doing platonic things like talking and drinking coffee?” He asks, fingers tight around hers. 

Hyerim gives him a look, and _hmm_ s like she’s actually considering his question. Then she looks up and gives him a solemn little nod. The dashboard lights reflect off her eyes, bright and rocker rabbit round, and he decides that yeah, they’re all about the physical right now. So he bends down, and kisses her. 

She tastes of coffee and her perfume, flowery and floaty, and he can feel her fingers strain against his, like she wants to be closer and apart all at the same time. In the darkness, touch is magnified a hundredfold, the outline of her face sharp against the night, and it’s physical—so physical something fills his chest in painfully. She pulls away for a bit, her breath folding in with his, and he leans in again. 

When they finally, finally pull apart, he doesn’t let go of her hand. He leans his forehead against hers, and listens to her slow, slightly unsteady breathing. There’s a certain pride to be gained from that, and he likes that she seems to like it. It’s been a long time since the mere act of kissing was enough to make him so painfully satisfied. 

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” she says, her eyes still closed, “but I can’t say I disliked that either.”

“Me too,” is all he can offer, “me too.”

“What if,” she begins, slightly laughing, “we’re being photographed right now, and tomorrow one of your fansites messages you urgently that oppa, we need to tell you that we’re so unwilling to blackmail you, but here we are, blackmailing you?”

“You don’t like our fans,” he observes, and she harrumphs, “not one bit, huh.”

“What is there to like about them?” She asks in return, her weight resting against him. It’s a sweet burden. “Imagine people leaving death threats because your cat appeared in a photo with T—oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassures her, “we don’t like him either.”

“I was talking about the fans,” she says crossly, but doesn’t point out the obvious fact that he’s lying, “but yeah. What would you do? Would you go down the Super Junior route of pretending that the only female presence in your life will be the one taking incessant photos of you, or will you, I don’t know, shock them with the revelation that you want to be making out with a Wonder Girl?”

He opens his eyes, and the couple in front of the car is gone. It’s a good question. “I think,” he says slowly, and she doesn’t say anything, “I don’t have any good answers. I don’t want to pluck them out of the air, because I want them to _mean_ something. I’m serious about this, Hyerim.” He feels her clutch his hand a little tighter. “I want this to work.”

It’s a long silence. 

“Okay,” she finally says quietly, the air conditioning humming alongside, “okay.”

 

___________________

 

May, 2015

When it had come down to picking a travelling companion for a short getaway to Tokyo, it hadn’t been too difficult for Chanyeol. Five minutes after sending a text that sounded more like a statement than a question, Jinho had replied with a quick yes. A few weeks later they were dragging their suitcases through Gimpo Airport—with the usual fans gathering, hovering, but not coming too close for some odd reason—and on the plane. Jinho was excited about the fabled stores of manga goods that supposedly had stacks and stacks of his favourite merchandise available. Chanyeol was just happy to be somewhere without his manager. 

They were seated in one of the ramen restaurants that someone from their Japanese staff recommended, waiting for their orders to arrive, when Kyungsoo called from somewhere in Ilsan, asking about how they were doing and if they were going to meet up with Sehun (no, Chanyeol yelled, never). Jinho laughed and asked about his parents. He and Kyungsoo had always been closer, a relationship Chanyeol never understood until the three had upped and left and Kyungsoo had proven to be incredibly perceptive. 

“You should have come if you wanted answers,” he snapped into the phone, and Jinho laughed while Kyungsoo swore, “and you could have brought your girlfriend along too!”

Kyungsoo swore again, ignored his repeated question of who his girlfriend actually was, said goodbye to just Jinho, and slammed the phone down. Chanyeol scowled as the restaurant continued buzzing, full of syllables he didn’t really understand even if the company seemed to want and advance in on the Japanese market again. The company’s strategy felt like it was one of making the fans learn their language instead of vice versa. Sometimes he thought it was a lazy method, one that wouldn’t last, but then again, it was also easier on him. 

“You know, if he wants you to meet his girlfriend, he’ll let you.” Jinho pointed out wisely as their orders arrived and they dug in. “Kyungsoo’s just a little private.”

“I’m not interested,” Chanyeol said as he jabbed at his noodles, “I just think that there shouldn’t be secrets between people in the same team.”

“Uh,” Jinho narrowed his eyes at him, “remember how you told your ex that you could get her backstage passes to see Kyuhyun hyung because your friend,” he gestured around his face, “was in SM The Ballad and could, I quote, ‘so get stuff done for me’?”

Chanyeol glared at him. “I was eighteen and trying to show off, okay? Cut dumbass teenager Chanyeol some slack.” 

Jinho laughed, like he always did. Sometimes Chanyeol wondered if he had any other mode apart from kind and nice. He’d never seen Jinho get angry in his entire life, not even on the day he was announced to have been dropped from the Exo lineup. Not when he still went to see their debut showcase in Seoul, or when the company seemed to have completely forgotten about his existence. Chanyeol wasn’t sure that he could react the same way. Seven years after they’d both first entered SM as trainees, he was now one-tenth of the best-selling boy band in the recent decade, while Jinho was still waiting. 

“Then you play nice with Kyungsoo,” Jinho slurped up the rest of his noodles, and the chef across them in the open air bar-style kitchen shot him an approving smile, “so one day, you’ll get to see his super pretty and really nice girlfriend.”

“Whatever.” Chanyeol rolled his eyes and slurped even louder. The chef looked so satisfied now that he couldn’t help giving him a thumbs up. The ramen was delicious. At least the staff member’s recommendation was accurate. “At least we all don’t know how she’s like. Fair enough.”

Jinho raised an eyebrow and reached over to pick his phone up. Chanyeol watched as he pulled up the Instagram app and scrolled. Jinho didn’t use his account as avidly as he did, but Chanyeol had looked at the comments he got sometimes whenever he updated. It was full of fans telling him to debut soon. It wasn’t something that Jinho could control, so Chanyeol never knew whether to feel happy or upset on his behalf. Jinho took a photo of the ramen bowl, and put his phone away again. 

“By the way, I’m going to go to university.” He said suddenly, and Chanyeol choked. “Whoa buddy, you okay?”

“No?” Chanyeol coughed, outraged. “You’re going to _what_?”

“Study music.” Jinho replied, his face very serious. Something went cold in Chanyeol’s chest as his ears burned. “I mean, after I go to the army, of course. I’m just waiting for the letter now. Not going to defer my enlistment any longer.”

“But—” Chanyeol blinked quickly. It was difficult to process everything. Jinho looked at him kindly and waited for him to continue. “But—you’re so close.”

Jinho ate another mouthful of noodles and rested his chopsticks on the table, his expression thoughtful. Chanyeol felt like this was the most ridiculous thing that he’d ever heard, apart from the first time they had listened to the demo track for Wolf. Jinho mulled it over for a while more, before he nodded and shrugged. 

“My contract expired last week. I think we all know that if I was close to anything, it was three years ago.” Chanyeol opened his mouth to say something, but Jinho shook his head, and he fell silent. “I don’t blame anybody or anything. I just think it’s time to move on. Serve my country, and then go out into the world to have a look. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“You can go around the world as an idol,” Chanyeol said, his voice slightly strained, “we do that all the time.”

“That’s not the same,” Jinho said, slightly amused, “you don’t get to go to classes or take public transportation.”

“Junmyeon hyung goes to class,” he tried to point out like it was a valid point, “and he—”

“Junmyeon hyung hasn’t gone to school in ages,” Jinho said gently, and Chanyeol felt the knot in his throat bunch up even more tightly, “it’s okay, Chanyeol. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. You don’t have to comfort me.”

But it wasn’t fair at all. Chanyeol remembered the days of them practicing together into the darkest hours of the morning, of them being put into the same pre-debut team, of Jinho being outstanding and fielded into SM The Ballad. Everybody was envious of him back then, including him, thinking that it was Jinho’s ticket into stardom. But instead it was Chanyeol, propelled into the hearts and minds of millions around the world, while Jinho sat here in a ramen restaurant, talking about his decision to turn his back on idol-hood like it was the easiest thing to do. They had yearned for this together, a fervent wish so strong that he’d seen Jinho run a fever and practice until he’d passed out before finally being sent to the ER. It was this sole desire that kept them running, that kept Chanyeol pushing forward—being an idol was everything to them. But Jinho was giving up now, a decision Chanyeol couldn’t wrap his head around. 

“Is it because,” he started again, throat very dry, “is it because they didn’t put you in the Rookies team?”

Jinho shrugged and pushed his empty bowl away. “Not really. I mean I never expected myself to be in the team, ever, but I wasn’t pinning any hopes on it either.” He picked at the edge of the table. “You know, this isn’t the end of the world.”

How was it not? Chanyeol peered at his half-empty cup of tea, and lost all interest in eating. Jinho picked up his chopsticks again and reached for the last piece of fried shrimp. They had fallen into silence, and while it was always an easy, comfortable sort whenever he was around Jinho, this time it wasn’t the same. Something was gnawing at the bottom of his stomach, and he felt sick. 

“What can you do now?” He finally asked, and Jinho looked up from his phone, eyes bright. Sometimes he and Kyungsoo looked alike, not because they shared the same eye shape, but because, as Chanyeol realised now, they both seemed to be firmly in charge of their lives. “I mean.”

The look in Jinho’s eyes was frank.

“What can I _not_ do now?” 

He said simply, and Chanyeol realised that he didn’t know the answer to that at all.

 

___________________

 

July, 2016

The Wonder Girls find out because of a mistake that, Hyerim has to admit, could have completely been avoided if they were using Between instead of Kakaotalk to chat. But Chanyeol’s insistence on using stickers to express whatever he wants to say keeps them on Kakaotalk, and on that fateful day, Hyerim accidentally sends a “don’t tell anyone I’m dating you” to the Wonder Girls chatroom. Almost immediately she is bombarded by frantic demands to know what is going on by Yeeun, voice notes of her laughing from Sunmi, three question marks from Sohee, a single picture of a confused Hailey from Sunye, and an entire series of Infinite Challenge stickers that don’t relate to the situation on hand from Yubin. 

Hyerim considers this to be the biggest challenge of her life thus far, and so she does the best possible thing—call Chanyeol, and run away. He deals with it by simply laughing, his voice echoing in their dance practice room. Hyerim can hear the stuttering of their comeback song as someone plays and pauses it a few times, Jongdae yelling something, then an entire chorus of voices shouting back. It’s a mess, much like her head. And Chanyeol’s still laughing. 

“It’s not even that funny,” she says, and he laughs again, “stop laughing! I swear I’ll tear your head off.”

“No you won’t,” he’s almost giggling now, and Hyerim wants to cut the line, but really he’s the only comrade she has now. “You can do this, though.”

“What,” she rolls her eyes even though he can’t see her, “you’re only saying this because you have a comeback to practice for and you know that even Yeeun unnie doesn’t have the guts to bust into SM and kick your ass.”

“True,” Chanyeol admits and she swears, making him laugh again, “speaking of which, I need to practice. Again. Also Jongdae’s looking my way, which is pretty scary.”

“Jongdae? Do _you_ want to deal with Yeeun unnie?” She sputters, and Chanyeol immediately backtracks. She’s flustered, but the way he’s trying to placate her is still kind of cute. But even that doesn’t erase the fact that she has to face Yeeun sooner or later, which makes her even more reluctant to put the phone down. 

“Don’t worry,” he says finally, his comeback song playing in the background again. It’s catchy, very SM, and he’s already shown her enough of the choreography for Hyerim to know that it’ll be another million-seller. “If Yeeun nuna has to kick my ass, so be it. Really gotta go though, love you!”

“Wait, wha—” The line drops before she can finish, and Hyerim stares at her phone for a long while before deciding that if she has to face the music, she’ll damn well do it with flair and style. Then she realises that Chanyeol just dropped the L-bomb, but really, it’s not the time to deal with it yet, not when she has someone like Yeeun on her heels. 

Yeeun finds her quickly enough. She’s nestled in a corner of one of their staff members’ mother’s coffee shop, legs pulled up to her chest and texting away to Chanyeol, who somehow magically finds time to reply in the middle of a comeback practice, no less, when Yeeun drops herself into the chair opposite her and folds her arms across her chest. 

“Oh my g—” Hyerim squeals, and Yeeun raises an eyebrow, which shuts her up as quickly. 

“You,” Yeeun points at her with a threatening finger, “talk. Now.”

Hyerim blinks, her phone buzzing on the table, and wonders if it’s advisable to reach for it and run for her life. But Yeeun has got that covered, stretching her legs across the other chair so that she’s trapped between her and the wall. Yeeun’s good, Hyerim thinks in despair. If only Yubin was here to help her out. 

“Yeah, talk.” Yubin appears, a milkshake in hand, amused eyes peering at her over the top of her shades. “We’re really interested in what you have to say.”

“Is Sunmi going to appear next?” Hyerim sticks her head out and tries to scan for her. “Because if we’re going to have a confrontation, the entire crew should be present.”

“Sorry, I was just getting some gelato.” Sunmi pops up from behind Yubin, and Hyerim doesn’t know whether to be happy or bury her face in her hands. But nobody gives her time for that, because very soon they’re all surrounding her and giving her such severe looks that she can almost feel them physically cut her. Yeeun crooks her finger and Hyerim spills. 

It’s a long story, but she dutifully begins from the fateful photoshoot, to the disastrous noraebang group date, to their Han River drives and Starbucks outings. Hyerim also conveniently leaves out the more intimate details, because seriously, nobody needs to be discussing those in the middle of a coffee shop owned by the mother of a JYP employee. At the end of the story she pauses to take a sip of her coffee, while everyone else sits in silence. Then Yubin whoops, Sunmi joins in loudly, and Yeeun simply frowns. It’s not like she expected anything else from them, Hyerim thinks as she sips at her iced latte. 

“I told you!” Sunmi squeals, hands clutching at nothing mid-air. “I told you she was going to bag one of them cute ones!”

“Bag?” Hyerim gives her a weird look, but everyone ignores her. Yubin and Sunmi begin compiling a list of Exo members by looks (Hyerim catches a “Suho is last, come on”), while Yeeun keeps frowning. Hyerim sighs, and reaches for Yeeun’s hand. She still doesn’t say a word, but Hyerim knows she isn’t angry. Worried, more like it, and she has a good idea why. 

“I’m not Jia, you know.” She says in a low voice, and Yeeun looks at her for an extended beat before sighing herself. “I know how to protect myself.”

“I’m not worried about you,” Yeeun says a little crossly, “I’m worried about him. Just—do you think he deserves you?”

“Unnie!” Sunmi cuts in, slightly outraged. “Don’t say that, what if the barista likes them?”

Yeeun rolls her eyes and the both of them engage in a debate over whether it’s safe to insult Exo in public. Hyerim watches them and wonders why she’s not surprised Yeeun asked her that. It is the exact same question she’s asked herself, except inverted—it’s not something she has the answer to. The jobs they hold dictate that they are somehow answerable for their decisions to people that have completely no say in those. Hyerim doesn’t see how that makes sense, but then again, the job scope of an idol isn’t logical either. 

Jia’s past experiences have widened their scope, wide enough that none of them have dated within the industry ever since 2010. Yeeun’s heart got broken so badly that her entire solo debut album was about the guy, but nobody has managed to find out who he is. Sunmi’s last relationship was with someone from her university (that she no longer goes to, because reasons), and Yubin’s always been about the sound engineers, at least when she’s not going on-off-on with Taecyeon. And Hyerim—the last time she had a boyfriend he tried to hit on Sohee, but at least he was a grad student from the States that had no access to legions of girls with enough money to do anything and everything. So she knows exactly what Yeeun is talking about. It’s just difficult to say if she has a good answer to it, or not. 

“Exo can sell millions of albums,” Yubin begins, voice so quiet that only Hyerim can hear her, “but that doesn’t offer Park Chanyeol an automatic ticket into your life. He has you at your best now, but will he want you at your worst? Would you want him at his worst?”

“Yubin unnie…” Hyerim trails off, and Yubin reaches for her hand. It’s warm and comforting. 

“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t live in the now,” Yubin makes a face, and Hyerim smiles a little, “but I want to make sure that he’s planning ahead because of you too.”

“We’re not going to get _married_ or anything,” she sputters a bit, but Yeeun and Sunmi are too absorbed in their sparring to hear her choke. Yubin grins and Hyerim feels like a hole opening beneath her right now would be nice. 

“I know, but which normal dude has a fanclub of close to a million prepubescent kids?” Yubin says. It’s something she can’t deny, so Hyerim sits and looks at her glumly. Yubin reaches over to pinch her on the cheek, grinning still. “So a meeting with us is in order. We’ll look him over once, and then you can bring him to your brother. Deal?”

There is no other option. The night ends with a phone call to Chanyeol, and she ends up having to redial four times before he finally picks up. Sunmi squeals so loudly that everyone looks their way when he answers with a “Hi baby?”, and Hyerim actually congratulates herself internally on being able to steel her nerves and finish whatever she has to say. Yeeun cuts in halfway when she’s explaining that he doesn’t have to worry because it’s just a dinner, and tells him that he’d better be on time or else. Yubin finishes smoothly by saying that there is no need to bring any presents, and that the Wonder Girls are all looking forward to meeting him, and she is the one who cuts the line. It’s all over before Hyerim realises that she only managed to say two lines to her own boyfriend. 

She’s still not over it, not even when they’re on their way to Sohee’s place, where the dinner is to take place. Chanyeol’s driving and he keeps sneaking looks at her at red lights, so much so that she has to ask him to stop because safe driving is essential, especially at night, and they’re only this lucky that nobody has discovered them yet. 

“Why are you still so hung up over the call?” Chanyeol asks as they drive towards one of the Han River bridges. “Because if I don’t remember wrongly, I was the one on the receiving end.”

“Who do you think they got your number from?” Hyerim says, picking at the tassels of her crossbody. “I just—do you think we can turn back now? They totally do not have to know.”

“Uh, baby, I think they will.” He points out quite kindly, and Hyerim sinks in her seat glumly. She’s not unwilling to let them meet him, not one bit, but Yubin’s words keep ringing in her head, and she has no idea how to answer them at all. It’s been two weeks, and she hasn’t had the courage to ask him yet. Maybe it’s because she’s still Past Hyerim, deep down inside, scared of the way words can cut and leave scars so deep they never really heal over despite the ugly scabs. 

“Would you want me at my worst?” The words tumble out before she realises it. Chanyeol glances at her, before he turns back to the road and signals to make a left turn. It takes a minute or two, and Hyerim realises that they’re back at the little Han River park where they first decided that it was okay to date. And make out in cars. Chanyeol parks and pulls up the handbrake, before he takes off his seatbelt, turns to her, and then kisses her. 

It feels strangely a little like that one dark night again, but he’s definitely more well practiced now. She’s also used to him now, the way he smells, the angle his nose presses into her cheek, the sensation of his lips on hers. It takes a long while, but then he finally pulls away and rests his forehead on hers. Between the both of them he’s always been the one more privy to sudden kisses, but today she doesn’t want him to stop. She’s about to kiss him again when he speaks. 

“Yes. Best, worst, in between—I want to be there for you. I can’t promise that I will be perfect, but I promise that I will try, and only my best.”

“You sound like a drama character,” she says after a long silence, and he laughs, his breath warm on her nose. “The really cheesy sort.”

“I might have filched a couple of words from Kyungsoo’s script,” he admits, and kisses her on the nose. It’s a nice, snuggly kind of kiss. So she releases her seatbelt and hugs him as tightly as she can, her chin resting on his shoulder. Next to him she’s always small, but loved. Wanted. And Hyerim thinks, as he holds her closer, that’s more than enough. 

“Ready to go get kicked in the ass?” She asks as she pulls away, and he makes a face as he considers. “I promise I will try, and only my best, to protect you from Yeeun unnie.”

Chanyeol’s ears turn very red and he pinches her lightly on the cheek. Hyerim keeps grinning, and he gives her a look, tousles her hair, and starts the car up again. As he finishes reversing and switches to drive, he suddenly stops again and Hyerim looks curiously at him. Chanyeol stares at her for a moment, then pulls her over for another kiss. 

“I mean it.” He says after a long while. “I really, really mean it.”

Hyerim looks at him, heart a puddle, and smiles. 

“Me too.”

 

___________________

 

December, 2010

“I still can’t believe you’re in the States!”

Hyerim picked up their order buzzer and shook her head as Jisoo went off on one of her moony-eyed speeches again. It had been close to a year since she was shipped off to the States as a replacement for Sunmi, the Wonder Girl who was so exhausted with the life of a star that she needed to come home and recuperate. And, Hyerim sometimes thought it was ridiculous, they thought that she was the perfect person to slot in. 

Even sometimes she still felt like her being in JYP was a dream, one that would break apart like a soap bubble if someone so much as touched it lightly with a finger. Every time she woke up she wondered if she was still at home in Hong Kong, a teenage girl with a wild star dream, but someone would shuffle to the bathroom outside, the non-stomping footsteps that didn’t belong to her brother, and she would know that she was really in the States. A Wonder Girl. It was a twist of events that she didn’t see coming, but Hyerim was someone that took everything life threw at her, and kept going. 

“New York is cold,” she said as they slid into a booth, “and you wouldn’t be able to survive.”

“Why?” Jisoo asked, her face still red from the cold. It was the dead of winter, and they were at a coffee shop near the JYP office. This place was popular with trainees from the Big Three, all located in the same area, but Hyerim wasn’t here to people watch. She was home only for a very limited amount of time, before they would fly off to the U.S. for their tour of conquering again. 

“No rice,” she laughed, and Jisoo’s face fell. Their buzzer then buzzed violently, and Jisoo took the chance to go grab their drinks. Hyerim glanced around as she ran off. If she observed seriously, it was easy to identify who the trainees were and where they were from. In the corner she spotted two who were obviously from YG. Somewhere in front of them were two boys from JYP, who caught her eye and nodded in greeting. Then to the right, two tall boys hunched over a table, beanies pulled low, but it was easy to see that they were SM. One of them looked her way, big eyes and ears, and she immediately looked away. Hyerim wasn’t used to attention yet, though he didn’t seem to be interested in giving her any either. 

“Here you go!” Jisoo returned shortly with two huge mugs, and Hyerim took one gratefully. Above Jisoo’s head she could see the two SM boys conversing, and then the one with the big eyes (and ears) laughing. He had nice teeth. She didn’t realise that she was staring until Jisoo waved a hand in front of her face. “Hyerim unnie. Unnie!”

“Oh. Hey, sorry. Wait, what were you saying again?” Hyerim blinked, and Jisoo turned around to see what she was looking at, before turning back around with a very sly look on her face. “Jisoo, don’t even—”

“Oh it’s totally okay,” Jisoo smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. “We talk about the SM trainees all the time! I mean, they are the most pleasing to the eyes.”

“Jisoo.” Hyerim deadpanned, but Jisoo kept up the whole wiggly eyebrow act. She turned around for another look again, so naturally that Hyerim suspected that she did do this on a frequent basis. Jisoo frowned, like she was searching her mental database for who these two SM trainees were, and Hyerim sipped at her latte. She wasn’t going to admit that she was curious to know who they were—after all, they were potential juniors. 

“I don’t know who’s the super thin one, but the guy with big ears?” Jisoo leaned over conspiratorially, and Hyerim found herself shifting forward. “That’s the guy featured in the new Japanese Girls’ Generation music video.”

“And you know this because?” Hyerim asked without meaning to. Jisoo shook her head slowly, as if berating her for not keeping up with the times. It wasn’t really her fault—their team of staff members encouraged them to focus on the future instead of the past. So that meant not looking at Naver, and definitely not at anything to do with Girls’ Generation. Their rivalry was mostly in the heads of the fans, but JYP wanted them to have only one rival: themselves. So Hyerim read articles about Taylor Swift instead, and imagined opening for her one day. 

“Word gets around quickly amongst us trainees,” Jisoo replied, slightly smug. Hyerim reached over and messed her hair up. Jisoo had been training for even longer than she had, a little girl growing up within JYP. Of course she would know everything. “And he’s one of the good-looking ones. So news about him is lightspeed, basically. Unnie, are you interested?”

“What? No way.” Hyerim shook her head so fast that she swore she saw stars for a moment. “I don’t even have time for myself.”

“I think he _could_ be interested in you,” Jisoo opined, taking a sip of her drink, “you’re so pretty.”

“Jisoo, dear, love goes way beyond that.” Hyerim put her mug down and said very seriously. It was true. She knew that her physical looks were never her strongest points, her figure or her voice either, so she wanted someone who wanted her simply because she was Hyerim. Not because she was good-looking or had a fabulous body, but because she liked organising and using PowerPoint. “They have to like you because you’re you.”

“He might like you because you’re you?” Jisoo said a little too hopefully. “If not now, maybe in the future?”

Hyerim took another look at their table. They were now standing and putting their coats on. He looked around in her direction one more time, and she wondered if he actually did managed to see her or otherwise. He still was very good-looking, even unpolished in the rough as a trainee. She watched as they walked out of the coffee shop, tall and thin, poised to be the next stars of their burgeoning industry. Maybe one day she would land in Incheon and see their faces plastered all over duty-free. But whatever Jisoo saying just sounded ridiculous anyway. 

“I don’t think so. Never going to happen. Ever.” She said, and Jisoo made a face. “Come on, we have to get back before they go crazy looking for us.” 

“But what if it really does?” Jisoo insisted. “My mom says you can’t be too sure about things like this.”

“I really don’t think so, Jisoo.” Hyerim laughed and rapped her fingers on the table. “Come on, let’s go.”

Very much later she realised that Jisoo never told her what his name was. But New York City awaited, and it was never going to happen anyway. So Hyerim filed it away in the back of her mind, and decided that if she were meant to find out who he really was, she would, someday.

 

 

 

 


End file.
